Red Wings may look down low as free agency set to open

Detroit Red Wings center Joakim Andersson, center, of Sweden, celebrates scoring against the Chicago Blackhawks with Damien Brunner (24), of Switzerland, and Gustav Nyquist (14), of Sweden, during the second period in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals in the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs in Detroit, Monday, May 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings and Ken Holland still have a lot of decisions to make as free agency begins in less than two weeks.

“We’ve got some big decisions because there’s a push from below,” Holland said. “When the season started last year, guys like Brian Lashoff, Gustav Nyquist, Joakim Andersson, they were all in Grand Rapids. Tomas Tatar’s in Grand Rapids, we signed a Danny DeKeyser, there’s five or six players that at the start of the ‘12-’13 season, that weren’t on our roster, weren’t on our radar screen other than depth. Those guys are all on our radar screen.”

The Wings began the offseason with a lot of uncertainty after Nicklas Lidstrom and Tomas Holmstrom decided to retire and Brad Stuart was sent to San Jose with his pending unrestricted free agency.

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Add in their inability to sign a top tier defenseman or a proven goal scorer up front, Detroit’s roster had a lot of holes and a lot of question marks heading into the lockout shortened season.

Those questions were answered by the youth in the farm system and aided big time by the signing of DeKeyser late in the season.

But that leaves a pretty full roster and guys that need to clear waivers if the Wings want to send them down to the minors.

“Other than DeKeyser, they’ve all got to go through waivers,” Holland said. “I’m pretty comfortable saying that none of them are going through waivers. Someone will claim them, which means that we either have to have him on this team or we have to make some moves. We started the year with 23 players and you add those five, that’s 28, so we probably have 27 or 28 players.

“We’ve got some tough decisions to make and at the same time, I don’t think it’s a big free agent market, if you look in comparison to other years, I think the free agent market every year is going to get a little thinner and a little thinner because teams are signing their best players. Nobody is letting those types of assets hit the market. They’re signing them or they’re trading them and somebody else is signing them. So much like the Red Wings were built in the ‘90s, through the draft, you know (Sergei) Fedorov and (Steve) Yzerman and Lidstrom and (Vladimir) Konstantinov, we’re trying to do the same thing now. We’ve got to build through the draft.”

With the re-signing of Drew Miller last week, Detroit currently has 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies under contract for next season.

Andersson, Nyquist, Jakub Kindl and Brendan Smith are all restricted free agents and will be resigned which balloons the forward unit to 14 and defensemen numbers to eight for a grand total of 24 on the roster.

“Eighteen months ago or plan was to try and be lean and go into free agency in 2012 because there was potential for a whole lot of high profile players,” Holland said. “We were lean and we did go in and we came within a whisker of getting one and we didn’t. So when you lose Lidstrom and you lose Stuart and you lost Holmstrom you’re going a little bit into the unknown.”

The big splash in free agency the Wings tried to make last offseason was going have Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, who both chose the Minnesota Wild to sign with.

“We were going into the unknown, but we knew there was potential,” Holland said. “I believe Pav and Z and Kronner are world class players. I’ve always believed in Jimmy Howard. I love E. There are people here that I thought we could build around that were better than some people thought. But you don’t really know until they get put in a position of more responsibility, more minutes, different matchups than they have been before.”

The Wings also have three unrestricted forwards out there as well – Valtteri Filppula, Daniel Cleary and Damien Brunner. There’s a chance they could buyout one or two the deals that remain on the roster to give them more flexibility.

“We’ve got to figure out ways to get better,” Holland said. “We’re not getting 50 percent better, we’re not bringing in a superstar player so we have to find a way to figure out a way to get a little bit better and a little bit different. Is it getting tougher, bigger, younger or quicker, but those are the decisions we have to make.

“My feeling is we’re in the thick of things,” Holland continued. “We’re not at the top of the heap, but we’re in a pile of teams that there are 24 of us in that pile. There are maybe three or four ahead of us in the class, but we don’t have those young studs. We don’t miss the playoffs to get those guys so we have to go through a longer process. When the time comes, can we trade for one or go after one that hits the market? We offered a ton of money last year to two people and one of them we kept raising it and raising it and I don’t think it was about money it was about lifestyle. I can’t fight lifestyle.”